© Reuters. UK to spend $130m on AI chips as race to buy computing power
Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, plans to spend £100m ($130m) to buy thousands of computer chips that power artificial intelligence amid global shortages and a race for computing power. The Telegraph reported on Aug. 20 that the UK plans to establish an “artificial intelligence research resource” by mid-2024, as part of Sunak’s plan to make the country a technology hub for artificial intelligence. The government is reportedly buying chips from manufacturers NVIDIA, Intel (NASDAQ:) and AMD, and science funding body UK Research and Innovation – spearheading the initiative – is reportedly ordering 5,000 NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs). . However, although $130 million has been earmarked for the project, funds are deemed insufficient to meet Sunak’s AI hub ambitions, so government officials could push for more funding at the next AI security summit in November. This follows a recent report that many companies struggle to implement AI due to available resources and technical barriers. In March, an independent review of the country’s AI computing capabilities said that investment in this sector is “significantly lagging behind” its international counterparts in the United States and the European Union. At that time, researchers had fewer than 1,000 NVIDIA chips available for training AI models while a panel of experts recommended that the UK make at least 3,000 top-of-the-line chips available to meet more immediate needs. On Aug. 16, S&P Global’s AI global trends report found that many companies said they weren’t ready to support the technology due to lack of sufficient computing power, as well as for the difficulties in data management and for security problems.
We partnered with S&P Global to launch a global survey of #AI practitioners and policymakers to understand what is driving or hindering their AI projects. Today, we published the survey findings in our new 2023 Global Trends In AI report.
We teamed with S&P Global to launch a global survey of #AI practitioners & decision-makers to see what’s driving or hindering their AI projects.Today, we published the survey’s findings in this new 2023 Global Trends In AI report. Get the skinny here https://t.co/k9W5AQ9hwg
— WEKA (@WekaIO) August 16, 2023
While it’s still an early stage for AI, S&P senior analyst Nick Patience said a deciding factor for Industry leadership will be determined by who can support AI workloads.
Translation by Walter Rizzo
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